I kept trying to analyze it in the back of my mind while still striving to focus on a person who was going to mean, I hoped, the end of a long quest. Suddenly I realized what was indefinable in his eyes — it was bliss!
Baba said, "Now tell me what you are confused about."
Ivy replied that although Rabia Martin had made her her successor as Murshida of the Sufi Order for the Western world, Ivy said she did not feel spiritually advanced.
Baba, looked delighted, slapped his knee, and said, "You are honest — that is good — that is what counts; you have not seen God and you have not realized Him. You see me as a person but you do not see me as I am. I will help you to see God and to realize Him. Do not worry. I will help you with these matters. You cannot teach anyone something you do not know — but as long as you are honest and say 'I have not yet realized God' it is enough, and say 'I can help you and you can help me' for that is the way it is."
Baba glanced at Charmian, sitting across from them on a wooden bench, and spelled: "Innocent."
Charmian, who had originally accompanied her mother to "protect her from quacks," burst into tears. "From then on she was his slave," Ivy remembered.
Baba told Ivy, "Truth is to be experienced. Intellectual knowledge is not enough."
Ivy and her daughter had been planning on visiting Delhi and Agra, but instead they stayed at Pimpalgaon with the ladies for five days, and during that time her heart melted and her feelings of love for Baba overflowed and were expressed through her tears. Baba had captured her heart.
On Thursday, 8 January 1948, she told Baba, "I never wanted to run a Sufi order — all I ever wanted to do was sing!"
Baba told her: "I too sing ... Down through the ages, I sing!"
He then advised: "You should tell all that you have not seen God, nor experienced Him. You have been given the post of Murshida from Inayat Khan's disciple Rabia Martin, and you will help others — and others will help you — to tread the path towards God. You, on your part, should go on talking about me to others. By not taking upon the responsibility of posing as a God-realized leader and by working as my medium, the devotion of hundreds will flow towards me, and you will have no responsibility."